To Feel the Sun
by InsanityInReverse
Summary: Francine had always told her that there were only three rules she had to follow to make sure her one-night-stand didn't end in disaster: Choose someone you will never meet again, have your fling, and then leave quickly. But for Madeline, even following the first rule seems to be a problem. And Alfred really isn't helping matters. [CanAme]


**A/N **;; Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the lack of AmeCan stories on this site? Oh, I have? Well, I'm just trying to contribute to the solution. This pairing is easily in my top five favourites, and it saddens me that there are so few stories about them – they're so cute together, don't you see? AU, canon, it doesn't matter… _they're adorable. _

Anyway, welcome to** To Feel the Sun**, a story that I wrote approximately three months ago and have just unearthed today. It took a little bit of dusting off and a bit of editing, but I think it's ready to post now. I'm excited to write it further, and I hope you guys stick around and maybe review it, because that would be beyond awesome.

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**To Feel the Sun**

**…o…**

**Chapter One**

**…o…**

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A soft tickling at her ear was the very first thing Madeline Williams felt as she, very slowly, slid from the world of dreams and blissful unconsciousness into the land of harsh reality. Warm air blew past her earlobe again and again, over her neck, caressing her cheek, leaving goosebumps exploding over her neck in their wake. Her whole body shivered in response to the strange sensation.

Then, she came to notice the warm, heavy pressure around her waist and the sounds… which were not so strange in and of themselves, but foreign in this situation, disturbing in this otherwise beautiful stage of her rather slow awakening. The ticking of a very loud, very annoying alarm clock and the noise of traffic echoed up to her from an unfamiliar height, initiating her still so baffled brain and permitting her mind to feel the slightest bit of confusion, even in her largely befuddled state. And this other noise, the one coming from behind her, which accompanied the tickle on her neck… the sound that almost sounded like the calm, peaceful breathing of another person.

Madeline's eyes snapped open abruptly, cursing herself for the action within the very next moment. Bright light stabbed at her sensitive eyes and a sharp pain shot through her temples, causing her to squint against the light and, only seconds later, making the stabbing pain shift into an equally unpleasant, painful throbbing. No matter what she had done the night before, one thing was certain: She'd had a drop too much and was now paying for it – with a very painful headache and the awful feeling of memory loss, as it seemed.

What had happened last night and where the hell was she now? were the first questions that popped into her head. She remembered that her cousin, Francine, that evil witch, had somehow convinced her to go with her to the party of a close friend late last night, to relieve some of the stress Madeline had been feeling lately. And Madeline had gone, with too much alcohol, and…

_Oh, maple…_

_Tabernac… For the love of Trudeau, please tell me I didn't do something I'll regret later._

She took a deep breath and edged her eyes open a little more cautiously than before, blinked, tortured, into the bright light of day that fell through the open wind two feet from her into the grand room. She could see the light wooden floors – hickory wood, she guessed – off-white walls, and bright, simple furniture. This was definitely not the hotel room she had rented the day she had arrived, nor was it Francine's living room. Madeline blinked slowly. How was this possible? She had, after all, only entered the States two days earlier… Not this soon, surely…

Madeline swallowed hard and groped around for her wireframe glasses on the bedside table, slipping them on her face with little difficultly as she felt them underneath her fingertips. Her gaze, now a lot less blurry, darted around the room, examining it. There were clothes scattered about the floor in front of the bed… and, if she wasn't mistaken, some of her own clothes, as well – the dress Francine had allowed her to borrow last night and, a few feet away from it, a man's shirt, her bra… and panties…

Madeline felt sick, worse than she had felt before.

Had she really done it?

This one thing she had never yet dared to do?

Madeline closed her eyes once again, trying to remember. There had been this guy. He had been tall, blond, with a masculine yet boyish charm about him. She could remember his smile and the little wrinkles around his eyes that only appeared when he laughed…

She moved her head cautiously, trying to look down at her own body, to see if the pressure on her waist was indeed caused by what she suspected it to be. Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest. There was indeed a man's arm wrapped her waist – but of course, what else could it have been? Who had she been trying to fool? Madeline turned her blue eyes away and tried to swallow the lump in her throat that had instantly formed there.

_Don't panic… _her inner voice told her calmly, trying to slow down the frantic beating of her own heart. _It's fine… You've only slept with a complete stranger… A one-night-stand never hurt anyone, right? And you can't remember it, anyway… Francine, this is all your fault! Oh, Madeline, for the love of Trudeau, what have you done?!_

As Madeline tried to let her breathing even out, the images began to come back to her: _His rough lips on her, his hot breath on her skin, deep groans sounding beside her ear. Skin on skin… How wonderful it had felt, her fingers digging into his shoulder blades as he…_

Madeline's heart picked up once more and she could just barely keep herself from gasping for air. So she wasn't quite without memory of the previous night… it was just… fragmented. She couldn't possibly look this man in the eyes now, or even dare to speak to him – at least not without wishing that the ground would open up beneath her and swallow her whole. And that meant that she would to somehow get out of bed without waking him up.

…But how?

Madeline breathed deeply, taking slow breaths as she moved just a bit, testing what her movement was doing to the man wrapped around her waist. His breathing had changed just slightly and his arm moved briefly, and then lay still again. Maybe she could even make him take his arm from around her body if she just jerked a little – gently, of course, as to not wake him up. Her heart was pounding fit to burst as she moved again, raising her hip a little. The man behind her uttered a faint grumble before seeming to turn on his back, his arm sliding off her body and landing heavily on the mattress instead, all without waking up at all.

She let out a breath of relief. That was half the battle. Now, all she had to do was just maneuver her way out of the bed without making it wobble too much or causing it to make too much noise. The last thing she wanted to do was wake up her new acquaintance – now wouldn't that be _awkward_? Cautiously, she pushed one leg over the edge of the bed, groping with her toes for the floor.

There it was, cool and wooden and smooth, not too far below her. She pulled the thin sheet that covered her body a little higher over her breasts, straining her body and sitting up – she performed the movement a little too fast, though, because the room immediately began to spin uncomfortably. Fortunately, the dizziness didn't last very long and she could take a careful look at the man beside her.

Her eyebrows rose to the edge of her hairline. He had turned his head to the side, so she couldn't exactly see his face very well, but his body was exposed well enough. The sheet had slid down to his hips, revealing a tone yet slightly chubby stomach with the fine line of blond hair that lead all the way down to the bulge that was showing beneath the sheet. Madeline immediately shied away from the sight and fought against the blush and the embarrassing memories that immediately began to resurface once again. She had to get out of there – fast!

But her attempt to get up turned out to be a little too rushed and uncoordinated through her growing sense of shame, causing her to completely forget she actually need _two _legs to make her escape properly. She failed to remember that one of her legs was caught in the sheet of last night's lover – and now it was too late. Her upward movement was stopped so abruptly that she lost her balance, spinning around while taking two helpless hops backwards with her arms flailing wildly before she could pull her leg free from the sheet, only managing to topple over and hit with the floor with a loud thud as the result of it.

Her cousin would find this entire situation very hilarious, Madeline thought bitterly, gripping her fist around the thin sheet. Francine never had trouble with her lovers – she was always able to handle the morning encounters with all the suave and charm she normally possessed, often bringing that night's lover back for round two. Madeline would know – she had lived with her sister for a while after graduating high school, and Francine had another man in the house practically every night – and she had often heard her cousin's escapades all through the night.

For a long moment, Madeline just laid there; squeezing her eyes shut painfully, wishing that the invisibility superpower she had always wished for as a child would kick on. She could really use it at the moment, honestly. To lie there, naked on the floor in front of the bed of a total stranger, baring her backside to him as a morning greeting because she was the most awkward person in the entire world was something that completely surpassed anything she had ever done before concerning the degree of embarrassment and shame. And her landing had been so loud that the guy in the bed would have _definitely _be forcefully woken up by it.

Madeline listened to the following silence with a wildly beating heart and burning hot cheeks, but there was nothing but the sound of peaceful breathing. There was no exclaim of shock, and there were no grumbles, as Madeline had expected. She lifted her head slightly, cautiously looking over her shoulder towards the bed. Just like before, her one-night-stand laid there, lost in the dream world Madeline suddenly wished she could go back to. But she couldn't help the little smile that crossed her lips. Could she really be this lucky?

Madeline steadied herself and sat up, quickly reaching for the sheet that was still wrapped around one of her legs, trying to wrap it around her body. She carefully stood up, keeping a strained eye on the man on the bed, who hadn't moved at all since he had released her. But he didn't open his eyes, sleeping on blissfully, even as she quickly gathered her clothes and then hurried from the room into the hallway.

She rushed into the brightly tiled bathroom just down the hall, running as quickly as she would if serial killer Michael Myers was personally behind her, closing the door silently and locking it immediately. Only then did she dare to breathe easier and let go of some of her tension.

"Stay calm, Madeline," she said quietly to herself, her voice barely above a whisper, let out a little breath of relief now that she was alone. _I haven't committed a crime, _she told herself. _Why am I acting so paranoid? This is nothing. People do this kind of stuff all the time, sneaking out before their one-night-stand wakes up. Hell, Francine would be __**proud **__of me! I just… I need to get dressed and out of this place as soon as possible. _

She agreed with her own thoughts with a nod, letting out a soft sigh and putting her plan into action. She vehemently kept her thoughts from wandering towards last night's actions, knowing that the images and memories would only prove to make her more nervous than she already was. Madeline glanced up to the full length mirror in the bathroom, her eyes widening slightly as she looked over herself.

Had she really gone to the party like this? How had Francine convinced her into this, she didn't have a clue. She stood in a dark blue, too-short dress her cousin had chosen for her. The dress was a nice colour, she could admit. Francine was right; it did bring out her eyes. Those she couldn't be so sure about Francine's other comment – "it will bring out those lovely curves of yours," her cousin had assured her.

Actually, Francine was to blame for everything that had happened to her the previous night. It was her fault that she had woken up with a stranger – a rather attractive stranger, from what she could remember, but a stranger nonetheless. Even before their departure, she had insisted that Madeline share a bottle of wine with her – just to loosen her up a bit, Francine had assured her. And during the entire ride there, she had been talking to Madeline insistently, telling her that she would thank after for this later and that she needed this party after all this time as a single woman, that it would do her a lot of good, that it would relieve her tension regarding the approaching meeting for her novel and she could then go there much more relaxed into the negotiations and the upcoming meetings following it. And eventually – after a few one more glasses of wine and more than one shot of vodka – Madeline had believed her. And then, her mystery man had crossed her path, dropping a few sweet words and chatting her up.

And then it had all gone downhill from there.

Tabernac! Stupid Francine and her stupid ideas and her stupid power of persuasion. She had never actually wanted to do something like this. This wasn't something that Madeline did. Alcohol and moronic ideas – rarely did that combination lead to anything positive. God, she was absolutely horrible – and she _felt _even worse. Her eyes were black from the smudged eye makeup – again, Francine's idea, unsurprisingly – and her wavy blonde hair stood off in all directions, evidence of obvious bedhead. She pulled a tissue from the box standing on a small glass table beside the sink, wet it with a bit of warm water and tried to refurbish her makeup the best she could.

Just as she was about to begin combing through her hair with her fingers – a poor substitute for a brush, but it was all she had – her eyes fell on the electronic alarm clock that sat on a narrow shelf. And Madeline froze in place, eyes wide and mouth slack. It was twelve thirty _already_? How long had she slept in? She had to be at the restaurant for the meeting at three… Oh, yes, the restaurant… the restaurant whose name she couldn't seem to recall at the moment.

"Could this day get _any worse_?" Madeline groaned. She needed to call Francine. Where was her cellphone? Surely, her cousin would be able to remember the name of the restaurant. Madeline's eyes flew across the small bathroom, but quickly shook her head and hurried over to the door. Her purse wasn't with her. She had forgotten to grab it when she had fled from the room and into the hall bathroom.

Carefully, Madeline stuck her head out the bathroom door and listened, eyes scanning for any presence and ears perked to track the smallest of sounds. If she wasn't mistaken, her one-night-stand was still asleep – what luck she had! Maybe this day wouldn't turn out so bad, after all, if it continued on this way. She straightened her shoulders and tiptoed down the wall, back into the bedroom. The man wasn't laying there quite like he had been before, as he had turned a little more onto his side, but he still seemed to be asleep – there was no evidence otherwise, much to Madeline's relief. Her purse was next to the bed, the same side the man had turned towards.

_He's asleep… _she told herself, as she quietly snuck towards the bed. _Just be very quiet. Like a mouse. Be invisible – come on, let your secret powers kick in._

Two more steps and she would be able to reach her purse, stretching out her hand and lifting it off the ground. Of course, something inside had to slide around and make a clatter, prompting Madeline to freeze in her movements, bright eyes focused on the man on the bed, looking for any particular movements. Her eyes darted away anxiously as she thought she saw his eyelid twitch – as if he had just opened his eyes and closed them very quickly. But that couldn't be. He still slept on – his breathing pattern hadn't changed at all. Why would an adult just pretend he was sleeping, anyway?

She shook her head, bringing her bag closer to her chest, much quieter than before, much to her pleasure. Madeline cautiously stepped away from the bed before grabbing her shoes and scurrying out the room door as quickly as possible.

Moments later, Madeline stood outside the door and quietly closed it with a relieved sigh.

She slipped into her shoes and slung her purse over her shoulder, trying to gather her as much as she could. There were so many more important things she had to worry about at the moment and time was rapidly slipping through her fingers. She figured she was in a modest, small hotel as she passed the many numbered doors and, upon meeting a maid with a cart full of cleaning supplies, her suspicions were confirmed.

What made her frown, however, was the mischievous grin that spread across the young maid's face as she locked eyes with Madeline, grin knowing. The Canadian tried not to worry about it, stepping as fast as she could into the open elevator.

Her one-night-stand was completed, she thought, breathing out a little sigh. She would never see that guy again. Francine would call it a right shame had she been there, shaking her head and tsking quietly. But that didn't matter; her cousin was much more charming than she could ever be. However, she had actually proved to have good taste in the selection of her brief acquaintance, even under the influence of alcohol, Madeline thought smugly.

But she supposed that didn't really matter.

She was never going to see that guy again, anyway.

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**A/N **;; That's what you think, Canada darling. That's only what you think.

**Stay awesome, guys. **


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